When the Wind Blows harder - Anne Rooney

Rock-a-bye baby on the tree-top,
When the wind blows,
The cradle will rock.
When the bough breaks,
The cradle will fall;
And down will come baby, cradle and all.

In 1982, Raymond Briggs (of Snowman fame) published a dark graphic novel on nuclear apocalypse. The protagonists, the mature couple Hilda and Jim Bloggs, prepare themselves and their house for nuclear blast following ridiculous government advice, a thinly veiled reference to the UK government's Protect and Survive. So Jim paints the windows white and they try to buy in food to tide them over the first few pro-blast days, but they remain blissfully ignorant of what the impending disaster really means. Inevitably, their preparations are of no use. The end is bleak.

For those who don't remember the Cold War, it really did seem that the end was nigh. And the government really did promote ridiculously pointless preparations, apparently in an attempt to make people feel, if not empowered, at least not as completely powerless as they actually were. When the Wind Blows was a bold thing to do. Graphic novels were very much seen as a children's genre and Briggs very much as a children's writer/illustrator. But this is deep social commentary and truth-telling of a type that almost everyone shied away from, and not just in talking to children.  

And here we are again. I'm not alone in being incredibly frustrated at how any writing about climate crisis for children has to be sugar-coated. We can't present the truth, it's too hard to bear. We can't tell children their world is doomed on our present trajectory. We can't show what will happen if we do as little as we are doing now. We can't show them despair. So we (me too, I've followed the editorial line) water it down and present little projects like making bird feeders from old plastic bottles and posters encouraging grown-ups to do their recycling. There is some sense in this, though not enough. We don't know the circumstances of children who will be reading our books. Not all of them will have a knowledgeable adult to talk to about this, or even a reasssuring adult to give them a cuddle when they're scared. As distant authors and editors, we don't want to be responsible for despair and self-harm. Nor do we want to do nothing. And we don't want to carry on writing our 'green' books that feel increasingly like Protect and Survive. I'll let you into a secret: we know that dying your old t-shirt won't save the planet. Still, publishers don't want children to be scared.

But, frankly, scared is appropriate. People who aren't scared don't act. It's time to stop lying. Young people know what's going on with the climate. Let's say (like When the Wind Blows), 11+ is the point whent it's appropriate to remove the kid gloves. We need When the Wind Blows for climate change. It's time. I doubt Raymond Briggs, at 87, will want to do it. I'd do it (not the illustrations, obviously), though I doubt any publisher would take it on.* I spend most of my time writing about science (incuding both climate and mass extinction) and know exactly how ridiculous most of what we present on this is.  

Climate catastrophe is as terrifying a place as nuclear apocalypse. Interestingly, fiction can go there. There is plenty of climate-armageddon fiction. Fiction is doing its proper thing, inciting pity and terror. But should we be relying on fiction to educate young people about climate change? Isn't that what non-fiction is *supposed* to do? Why are non-fiction writers being locked out of the most important topic of our age? Come on, publishers, let us write honestly about the climate crisis. Let us give the background that supports the wonderful climate fiction and shows that it's not just science fiction but science and fiction — with a fast-decreasing proportion of fiction.

Like nuclear war, climate crisis makes us feel impotent. What can we individually do that will help? It's not us — the ordinary people — who can make a difference, we feel. It's not true. People persuade themselves of that because they don't want to give up their most damaging behaviours, but we've already seen how consumer pressure is pushing manufacturers to take notice at last.

The most important thing we can do, as writers, as teachers, as publishers, is to speak out honestly. Because when the bough breaks, we all fall, even the babies.

* I am proposing this to one of my publishers — the one I feel is most likely to take something risky. We'll see how it goes

All images except Protect and Survive from When the Wind Blows, Raymond Briggs, 1982. Used without permission, but in a good cause

Anne Rooney

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Lonely Planet, The Dinosaur Book, 2021

 

Vanished worlds by Paul May

70 years ago, in 1950, Elfrida Vipont won the Carnegie Medal with The Lark on the Wing, the second in a series of five books about the musical career of Kit Everard, a young Quaker. 

When I came to this book the only thing I knew about its author was that she wrote The Elephant and the Bad Baby, that brilliant collaboration with Raymond Briggs which is still one of my favourite picture books. In many ways The Lark on the Wing is a straightforward story about a girl who wants to become a professional singer (the author is more than a little snobbish about 'amateurs' and, it must be admitted, about lower forms of music, like Gilbert and Sullivan and sentimental popular songs). Kit faces various obstacles in the course of the book which, naturally, she overcomes. It is, as Marcus Crouch observes, a 'serious and deeply moving book.' He goes on to say that 'It matters very much to her (Elfrida Vipont), and to her readers, that Kit should find herself and remain true to herself, and in doing so not only become a great singer but also fulfil the God within her.' One Amazon reviewer found it far too high-minded and I do see why, but the confident and often entertaining writing carried me through. 

Elfrida Vipont was herself a Quaker who, while studying History at the University of Manchester, realised that she really wanted to be a singer. She went on to study singing, according to Wikipedia, 'with teachers in London, Paris and Liepzig'. She didn't pursue a career in singing and instead married, had children, and became a writer. She initially wrote boys' adventure stories under the name Charles Vipont and then wrote many more novels for children and young adults as Elfrida Vipont as well as writing widely on Quaker matters and about music, often as E V Foulds.

There is a passage early in the book which seems particularly deeply felt. Kit tells Terry, who is already a professional singer, that she understands what she needs to do to be a singer herself.  'Lots of hard work, and no fun and games, but it's worth it.'

'I think it is,' said Terry. 'I've always known it would be for a man. But it may not be the same for a girl. Papa Andreas always says your mother had a lovely voice, but she can't have been much older than you are now when she was married.'

'Ah, that was different,' said Kit. 'You see, she'd met Father.'

Terry's arm trembled slightly on hers. 'And you—haven't met anybody like that yet?' he suggested.

Elfrida Vipont said about her book: 'Kit's experiences are not my experiences: this book would be a thin travesty of a photograph if they were. Fiction is not autobiography. Nevertheless, to re-read the book now recalls for me a host of memories—the essence is there but not the substance.'

I very much enjoyed The Lark on the Wing. The experience was like looking thorough a window onto a vanished world. This book is set partly in post-war London (although you wouldn't know that the war was so recently over), a world of Corner Houses and Milk Bars. It is, slightly terrifyingly, a world which I can just remember. It's also set in various small towns and cities, but always among Quakers. Everyone seems to be related (fortunately the author provides a family tree at the start), and most people seem to be employed in Quaker businesses and organisations. A Quaker grocery business in a seaside town employs musical performers to play in the cafe, and it is the descriptions of musical performances that I enjoyed most in this book. One of them reminds me of a story that I will tell you shortly. But first I must mention the odd fact that this 'children's book' has no children in it.

All of the young people in the story are at work or university, living independently in shared flats or student halls of residence. Some are married already, with children. Where the book is not about music it is about love. Kit, the central character, is utterly focused on becoming a singer and has no notion that the young men around her, like Terry in the excerpt above, have any romantic interest in her. In her unawareness of sexuality Kit is still a child. Lotte, her singing teacher's cook, sings her a 'cradle song of my country'

' . . . it's going to be one of my songs, I know it is,' (Kit) said. 'Won't you give it to me, please?'

'Not yet, my little one, not yet!' insisted Lotte, shaking her head. 'I tell you, it is not the time. The heart is not awake.'

This is enough, I think, to indicate the kind of book this is. Whether or not Kit's heart is awakened, I leave you to guess. And so to my story.

Kit is invited at one point to sing at a charity fundraiser in the home of Lady Hilbery-Wapentake (there are some great names in the book). 'Tea was being served in the ante-room . . . "Not so much as a sandwich!" commented the dance-band leader in a disgusted tone. "Never mind, we'll make up for it afterwards. I've had a word with the butler."'

This has the ring of bitter experience, an experience I have had many times in many different places and, as we move into another lockdown, I'd like to take you back to another vanished world, the world of crowded receptions and canapés. The year was 1994 and I was playing in a kind of flamenco/jazz improvised guitar duo with my friend, Glenn. The year before, I'd quit my full-time teaching job to start writing children's books. We'd recently played for a theatre performance at the University of East Anglia and we were asked to provide music for the grand opening of the new Drama Studio. There would be crowds of people, good food, and best of all from Glenn's point of view, the Studio was to be opened by one of his heroes, Harold Pinter. I think we imagined we'd play for a bit and then stop to have some food, at which point we'd be introduced to Harold Pinter and we'd have a chat about music and theatre and Pinter would learn that Glenn wrote plays and  . . .

It wasn't like that. The room filled with people. We played. People talked. They talked very loudly. They probably didn't hear the music as we couldn't hear it ourselves. The event went on . . . and on. No one asked if we wanted to take a break. No one paid any attention to us at all. We were starving, and thirsty, watching all those people eating and drinking and talking. And then suddenly, weaving through the throng with a plate of canapés, I saw Hazel. She was the mum of one of my ex-pupils, a boy who had caused me some anxiety in my first year of teaching when I'd woken in the middle of the night panicking because I'd forgotten to give him his glasses at home time (he was 5). Hazel was also, wonderfully, working for the caterers.

UEA Studio

She sized up the situation with a single glance, maoeuvred over to us and popped canapés in our mouths as we continued to play our guitars. After that, every time she came out with a new tray, she came to us first. There is often a grim camaraderie between caterers and musicians at this kind of function, just like Elfrida Vipont's band-leader and the butler.

Oh, and we never did get to meet Harold Pinter.

The Lark on the Wing is out of print and a bit pricey on Abebooks, but not as expensive as others in the series. There is a biography of Elfrida Vipont which I'd like to read one day but I haven't been able to get hold of that either, and even though the British Library has been open I can't face sitting for hours in a mask with my glasses steaming up.

Paul May's website.

The low value of the invaluable

There was an encouraging article in The Guardian last week about how popular children's books are, how much children like to read physical books, and what a large share of the publishing industry they represent. All good things. Yet a careful reading of the article reveals a few familiar contradictions:

• In 2016, sales of children’s titles rose 16% to £365m
• All book sales rose 7% - so the rise in children's books is disproportionate (and the rise in adult books clearly less than 7%)
• Children's books now represent 24% of sales in paper books.

Unfortunately, it's not clear whether 'sales' means volume (number of books) or value (amount in £). It's easy to raise sales if you sell books for 25p each, an increasing trend that has escaped from the discount stores into the mainstream. But let's go with the optimistic bit and ignore the volume/value issue for a moment.  This suggests the nation values children's books, which must be a good thing.

There is even a new print magazine for children, Scoop, which has confounded expectations by surviving for a year. It's edited by children's publisher par excellence Sarah Odedina, and if anyone could pull it off, she can. Scoop is a collection of writing - fictional and factual - commissioned from  a variety of writers. Here the usual snipes sneak into the Guardian's account: it's supported by 'heavyweights such as the playwright Tom Stoppard, plus children’s writers such as Raymond Briggs.' Since when was Raymond Briggs less of a 'heavyweight' than Tom Stoppard? Oh, of course, he writes for children... He has far more readers than Stoppard, is far more relevant to a magazine for children, but let's dismiss him anyway. I'm sure parents are going to be more likely to buy their kid a magazine with articles by Tom Stoppard than by someone who, you know, writes for children.

But that's all OK because the magazine also publishes some bits by children (no comment - I wouldn't do that, but I can see why they might choose to) and 'pays all contributors, high and low, the same rate – 10p a word.' Equal payment is a good thing generally, though I query the suggestion that something written by a professional with 20 years' experience is worth the same as something dashed off by a ten-year-old. But paying only £100 per 1,000 words is not a good thing in any circumstances. The lowest rate for magazine writing - for small, low-circulation magazines - given as reasonable by the National Union of Journalists is £250/1000 words. A quick look at their collected figures for reported fees puts Scoop in the bottom 20% over the last three years - but then, it's for children, so what do you expect? (This makes it, in NUJ terms,  a 'category D' publication, a classification that 'covers a multitude of sins, down to those that are either very small or very stingy': 'some get away with paying £150 per thousand - especially those that hold a virtual monopoly on a specialist field or where the field is infested with enthusiastic amateurs.')

This is symptomatic of a wider problem, that affects not just children's writers but all writers - though it's often worse for children's writers because we're not, you know, 'real' writers like Tom Stoppard. The time and effort spent crafting something so compelling it will turn children on to reading and open up potential for their whole lives is not as valuable or impressive as the time and effort spent amusing the literati in a London theatre for a couple of hours, obviously. It's rather depressing that even an article on the wonderfulness of children's books takes these attitudes for granted. The public might love us and our books/words - they just don't want to pay for them or acknowledge that there is any expertise involved in producing them. Even, it seems, people who write for the Books section of the Guardian (which under a 'house agreement' dating to 2012 pays a minimum of £312/1,000 words - words for adults, obviously.)

For all those Grinches out there: The Best Books for Christmas Haters - Emma Barnes

Lyn posted a beautiful post recently on the joys of preparing for Christmas. Her Christmas rituals and the pleasure she takes in them warmed the heart of even an old Grinch like me. Even so, I haven't been converted to the joys of knit-your-own-advent-calendar while rustling up a batch of mince pies. I deck the halls with holly with some reluctance (usually late, and with a scratched thumb). Hearing Slade in November is guaranteed to curdle my spirits. And I've yet to be convinced that Christmas shopping is anything but a pain, and inflatable glow-in-the-dark Santas anything but a health hazard.

So for all the other Grinches, Scrooges and old sour pusses, here are some Christmas books which are not all cosiness, snowscapes and Goodwill To All Men. Christmas is not always a perfect time of year, even for children.  Sometimes it's good to be reminded that things do go wrong.  And actually, that can be alright too.

Christmas is very hard work for some people.  One person who thinks Christmas sucks is Raymond Brigg's Father Christmas. Can you wonder at it? Getting up early, icy cold, a very long night with too many mince pies. “And a blooming Merry Christmas to you!”

Mog has been much in the public eye this Christmas - see her star performance here.  But even before her recent Christmas Calamity, her original outing in Mog's Christmas has her hiding out on the chimney in order to escape all the unheaval and the descent of all those relatives.  (I'm sure many will sympathize.)

Another moggy, Anne Fine's delightful anti-hero Tuffy, has a fabulous time dancing about in the Christmas pudding and getting locked in the garage.

Horrid Henry can also be relied on not to let any sugariness (other than the tooth-destroying variety) creep into the festive season.

This one might be my favourite funny Christmas read.  The terrible Herdman children take over the church Nativity Play and chaos ensues. The rest of the congregation tries to get them kicked out, and their minister is forced to remind everybody that when Jesus said suffer all the little children to come unto him he meant all the children – even Herdmans.

And finally, let's not forget the Grinch.

Go on then – what is your own favourite not-so-perfect Christmas book?

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The Perfect Christmas Book by Emma Barnes

Forgive me, those who don’t like to think about Christmas in November. But this is my last post this year and I’m going to use it to think about what makes the perfect Christmas book. 

A shiny cover is not enough. Nor is a Christmas theme necessarily what you want, although some subjects do crop up time and again – Nativity plays for example, have inspired some great stories. And sometimes a lack of Christmas cheer is somehow more Christmassy (who can forget the present-less start to Little Women? Or Laura Ingalls Wilder and her beloved, homely, home-made rag doll?)  And where Christmas does feature it can be the downright ghastliness of it all that produces the best read (that’s the case with several of my choices below). 

But beyond that, what’s really wanted is atmosphere. I’ve only written one book myself, Wolfie, that I consider truly “Christmassy”, and it’s less because the action culminates in the Christmas holidays, and an exchange of presents, than because it contains deep woods, snow, church clocks chiming midnight and wolves – all of these elements associated in my mind with timeless winter, and therefore Christmas. 

So here are my top Christmas reads for all ages – full of snowy woods, Nativity plays and festive ghastliness. But I’m well aware they reflect my own prejudices, and my own childhood favourites. Which ones have I missed? Which would you recommend? 

Father Christmas - by Raymond Briggs. 

 

 Brigg’s Father Christmas is definitely of the “Christmas is ghastly” school of thought. Grumpy and curmudgeonly, he mutters “Blooming Christmas! Blooming reindeer!” as he struggles through the snow. With the minimum of words, Briggs has produced something both funny and beautiful that all ages can enjoy.

 The Killer Cat’s Christmas – by Anne Fine.

Anne Fine is good at disastrous families, and her anti-hero, Tuffy the Cat, is a wonderful invention. So a book about Tuffy’s Christmas, centring as it does on one of the most ghastly aspects of Christmas for many people – visiting relations – is bound to be hilarious. Bad Cat Tuffy relates his own story, and the succession of disasters that led to him spending Christmas locked in the garage. Aimed at newly independent readers, it’s a read that will be enjoyed by almost anyone. 

Lucy and Tom’s Christmas by Shirley Hughes

 Here it's the pictures that evoke a truly marvellous atmosphere, especially when the over-excited Tom goes for a calming walk with Grandpa.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson

 

This is an absolute humdinger of a book – a comic classic in the US, where is spawned a film, but hardly known in the UK. The Herdmann children are every kind of ghastly and when they take over the annual Christmas Pageant at the Presebyterian Church disaster is sure to follow. But despite all the mishaps, the result is a truly moving triumph – and the book goes to the core of Christmas, I feel, but in the least sloppy, yet most heartfelt way.

 End of Term by Antonia Forest

This book is out of print, and also a school story – with a fair amount of the action concerned with netball and other non-Christmas matters. But bear with me - it contains the most beautifully written account of a Nativity Play I have ever read. Antonia Forest never won the acclaim in her life-time that she deserved, but her superb writing is well worth savouring at any age – if you can afford the price of the book, that is, for those in the know are prepared to pay high prices for her. 

The Hobbit – by JRR Tolkien. 

OK, so with the movie out in December, it’s not just me who is going to think this classic tale of Bilbo Baggin’s adventures the perfect Christmas read. But it is. Christmas plays no part in Tolkien’s mythology of MiddleEarth (unlike C.S.Lewis’s Narnia – see below) but it’s got the right atmosphere, in spades. Who could question that this tale of lost treasure, wolves, winter, and dragons makes for a perfect fireside story, while nibbling on some Christmas cake? 

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S.Lewis

Supposedly Tolkien didn’t approve of his friend C.S. Lewis introducing Father Christmas into a book which already contained such diverse elements as fauns and centaurs straight out of the Greek myths, and talking beasts. It may lack consistency, but it works beautifully: the woods, the wolf secret police, the lamplight shining on the snow, the mothball-smelling fur coats, and the sardines for tea. And then there comes the sledge-ride, and the arrival of Spring... 

And finally, unbeatable I reckon for a Christmas atmosphere - 

The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper 

A fantasy story, in which young Will discovers that he is one of the “Old Ones” who must battle the Dark, it takes place in rural Berkshire, close by Windsor, and despite the fact that Cooper’s mythology is inspired by a rather Celtic version of King Arthur, is full of the rituals of a traditional Christmas season. There is a wonderful carol service in a tiny rural church, a carol-singing expedition, but best of all is when the snow begins to descend, deeper and ever-deeper, and the village takes refuge in the ancient Greythorne Manor on Christmas day... 

Cooper wrote this book after emigrating to the US, and I can’t help feeling that it is shot through with nostalgia for a place and a childhood world she had left far behind. I also can’t help finding echoes of another great Christmassy classic, The Box of Delights by John Masefield.

So, which Christmas read have I forgotten?  Which is your favourite? 

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Sometimes A Girl's Best Friend Is ...A Wolf.

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